Experimental determination and numerical simulation of the properties of negative index of refraction materials

Negative index of refraction materials have been postulated for many years but have only recently been realized in practice. In the microwave region these materials are constructed of rings and wires deposited on a dielectric substrate to form a unit cell. We have constructed, experimentally characterized and simulated several of these structures operating in the 10 - 15 GHz range. Our simulations using Maxwell's Equations solvers have included wire arrays, ring arrays and assemblies of unit cells comprised of rings and wires. We find good agreement between the numerical simulations and experimental measurements of the scattering parameters and index of refraction. The procedure was to first model ring and wire structures on the unit cell level to obtain scattering parameters from which effective epsilon, mu and n were retrieved. Next an assembled array of unit cells forming a 12degrees wedge was used for the Snell's Law determination of the negative index of refraction. For the structure examined the computed value of n is within 20% of the one experimentally measured in the Snell's Law experiment from 13.6 to 14.8 GHz. (C) 2003 Optical Society of America.